What’s in a Name?
We had a solid question come in on our Facebook page asking why we chose Team Hinty. While we may have labored long and hard over naming a vehicle or a family pet, we settled on the identity of our online presence and business fairly quickly.
I learned to spell at an early age. Every pizza ordered before I turned 40 required spelling out my last name for the person taking the order. All 13 letters. I don’t think it’s hard to spell, but then I’ve spent a lot of time with it. Honestly, there were some neighbors of ours when we lived in Wisconsin who had way too many consonants jammed together.
Our last name is Hintermeister. Not overly technical compared to some names…just long. More than one friend or acquaintance over the years invariably shortened it to Hinty and that kinda just stuck.
That’s the easy part of the header for this here web site. The “Team” part of the banner is worth further expounding. It’s not just an us and we thing … it’s a set of core values.
Donelle and I long ago decided to walk this life journey together. We are equal partners in this relationship and walk side by side in all things. I don’t lord power over her because I’m the man of the house and she, most of the time, lets me think I’m just as smart as she is. If only the whole world could see the rock star I get to live with. With that being said, we strive for a 50-50 partnership, regardless of some days being 20-80 and others being 80-20.
As our two-person team grew to four, I began a career in law enforcement and that is when the spotlight shone brightest on my belief in the importance of core values. It was an incredible opportunity for me to witness people getting in the way of their own success and see just how family units would break down. No amount of schooling or training prepares you for the type of situations you get called to. During those years, wearing a uniform and meeting with students, I urged them to be the best versions of themselves by making good choices and honoring their names. At times I felt like a broken record, repeating lectures to different audiences. It didn’t take long for me to detect recurrring themes of things I felt were important/common sense. These themes were solidified early on through family, church, and the Scouts.
While my own Boy Scout career may have fizzled out in junior high school, I believe there were some lessons that must have stuck. The Scout Law is an absolute gem and while adult me might not always recall the correct order, there are 12 points worth living up to. For those Scouts out there, I’m sure your lips are moving to, “A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.” Those, in combination with lessons learned and a lot of road rash, became fodder for the gospel according to this James and I would preach it.
By the time my kids entered their teenage years they were bound to hear this gospel repeatedly. Some of it was original material, some of it was repurposed (the middle school had a gem of a motto: High Expectations, Exceptional results), and all of it was repeated with consistency.
One theme I “preached” succinctly, and Donelle reinforced with much more eloquence, was the concept of Team. Our kids’ responsibility was to remember that each time they walked out the door they were carrying OUR name on their back. The team mentality embodies unconditional love and support and a guarantee that we would come running if they were in trouble, and stand next to them as they worked through it or be their loudest cheering section in celebrating their successes.
There were lots of prayers, a strong hope that luck would be on their side, plenty of lectures/pontificcating, consistency of message, and above all, a unified parenting front…as a team. Yes, we had wildly different styles. Only one of us saw no problem at all with pulling the kids on a toboggan behind an SUV. Only one of us capped off a carefully crafted and eloquent 30-minute birds and the bees discussion with, “If you want to avoid issues, keep your pants on.” Only one of us has the motto, grow together and grow old…but never grow up! Only one of us had three children.
There is some likelihood that the 50-50 thing on parenting had a wider range of variation but there was no question that it was TEAM first. Years ago for Christmas, Donelle had t-shirts made. On the front is a family crest for the Hintermeister’s . On the back it reads “Team Hintermeister”.
We asked ourselves what all this means as we look to the future. For me, first with a career in journalism and then one in law enforcement, both now in the rear view mirror, I find myself wondering what I want to be when I grow up. For Donelle, a master communicator according to her biased husband, and master of human performance improvement according to higher powers of academia, she is searching to share her experience and purpose too. Team Hinty was a way for us to take this condensed practice of team, combine it with our experience, knowledge and desire to collaborate with others and expand it beyond our family concept. We are slowly creating what Team Hinty looks like publicly. It is evolving to represent our desire to build connections and community with the same values we practice daily. Integrity, honesty, love, grace, accountability, humor, and empathy come to the forefront. Right now, we hope that others would like to join our team, through interacting on social media and our website. We tend not to use the word followers as we hope to build a community of interested people. Therefore, when you “like”, “subscribe”or “follow” us, you are now a team member! In the future, we hope to expand our team offerings beyond sharing our experiences from our travels or what comes to our minds in the moment, to include in person gatherings, more opportunities for our teammates to collaborate online, and speaking engagements where we share insights as well as interact with our team in person. Thank you for being interested in our journey and being apart of Team Hinty. Go Team!